How to Make Delicious Pour-Over Coffee? A Guide to Pour-Over Coffee Blooming. What is the Purpose of Pour-Over Coffee Blooming?

Why is Blooming Essential in Pour-Over Coffee?

Many beginners in pour-over coffee often ask: Why is blooming necessary? The most indispensable step in pour-over coffee is the blooming process. The purpose of blooming is to allow the coffee to release gases and ensure even extraction, as well as to clearly understand whether the beans being brewed are fresh.

FrontStreet Coffee specializes in fresh roasted coffee beans. Some people mistakenly think that fresh coffee beans are simply freshly ground beans, but this is actually a concept substitution by certain marketing tactics from merchants. However, coffee beans are not better the fresher they are. If you get coffee beans that have just been roasted, they need to rest for four or five days so that the brewing can extract the complete coffee flavors. FrontStreet Coffee generally provides coffee beans that are two to three days from the roast date, unless customers specifically request same-day roasted beans, which will be provided additionally.

Understanding the Blooming Process

Blooming, often referred to as "Bloom" in English, is the preparatory action of evenly moistening the surface of coffee grounds with a small amount of hot water before the formal pour-over brewing begins. FrontStreet Coffee has demonstrated through experiments that without blooming, extraction is noticeably insufficient. This is because when extracting coffee, especially with relatively fresh beans, there are more gases inside the beans, and blooming is mainly to release these gases.

Without blooming, the gases inside the coffee grounds begin to release in large quantities upon contact with water. If brewing directly, the gas surrounds the coffee grounds, making it difficult for water to contact them. Only the surface coffee grounds can be extracted, continuously washing the extractable parts, which easily leads to uneven extraction.

Why Sometimes Blooming Doesn't Expand Properly?

Since blooming is so important in making pour-over coffee, what are the reasons when sometimes the blooming doesn't expand properly?

1. Coffee Beans Are No Longer Fresh

After coffee beans are roasted, carbon dioxide continuously releases even if they aren't ground into particles. Therefore, the longer coffee beans are stored, the more carbon dioxide is released. Without the barrier of carbon dioxide, flavor compounds also escape... During blooming, without large amounts of carbon dioxide "rushing out," the coffee bed will appear sunken. Additionally, since flavor compounds have also escaped, the final brewed coffee will taste bland, and in severe cases, only have woody flavors.

2. Coffee Grind Is Too Coarse

When coffee is ground too coarsely, larger gaps form between coffee particles, allowing water to pass through the coffee bed into the lower pot with a whoosh. The coffee grounds are not evenly moistened, and the gaps between particles are large, so the gravity of water will pull the coffee bed downward, causing it to sink.

3. Too Much Water During Blooming / Water Flow Is Too Strong

Using too much water during blooming or having too strong a water flow will prevent the coffee bed from having enough time to absorb and become moist. Ultimately, when excess water passes through the coffee bed and drips into the lower pot, it will pull the coffee bed downward, causing it to sink. FrontStreet Coffee suggests using a small water flow to inject twice the amount of coffee grounds during blooming.

Special Cases in Blooming

There's also a special reason: Some hard coffee beans with lower density (such as those from Ethiopian or Panamanian regions) or lightly roasted coffee beans, even within their optimal tasting period (4-30 days after roasting), may appear during the blooming stage like a pressed hamburger - seemingly expanded, yet not quite expanded... In reality, as long as you see slight bulging and bubbles emerging, that is expansion!

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473